3 Best Programming Books for Aspiring Developers

Lots of people are trying to build their career in software development because of its high demand and huge reward. If you want to stand out in this sea of developers, you should start investing in the best programming books. Learning from resources will make you a better programmer, and it will also give you a better chance of getting your dream job.

Deitel & Deitel How to Program Series

Paul and Harvey Deitel are considered to be the “saviors” of many novice programmers. For more than 30 years, they were able to help a lot of students understand the concept of basic programming and data structures.

Their How-To Program series involve discussions on the major programming languages such as Java, C, C#, C++, XML, Python, and Perl. Each programming language has its own book so that readers can get a better grasp of its syntax and concepts. Deitel & Deitel also release a new edition of each book every year or so to keep the information updated and to get rid of deprecated functions and concepts.

Steven Halim, Competitive Programming 1, 2, 3

Halim’s books are filled with advanced data structures and complex algorithms. The books are designed to train programmers who are interested in competitive programming. Some of the concepts found in the books may not seem beneficial for other developers, but knowledge in these complex areas will give you an edge, especially if you want to work in huge software development companies like Google, IBM, and Oracle.

Thomas H. Cormen, Introduction to Algorithms

If you don’t have superb critical and logical thinking skills, then you’ll never be a good programmer. Introduction to Algorithms will train your mind to think of solutions to everyday problems. The explanations for each algorithm are written in pseudocode so it will also force you to review your chosen programming language in order to execute different algorithms.

Programming tends to be a hard subject at first because you need to do two things: think of a solution, then transform it into codes. These three books will reinforce the skills you need in order to be a programmer that companies chase.